


the week of the magi

by Ink



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barcelona GPF, Fluff and Angst, Katsuki Yuuri/Competitive Figure Skating gdi, M/M, dumbass mutual pining (sort of), yuuri wins the gpf au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-11
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-23 15:16:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9663212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink/pseuds/Ink
Summary: The Grand Prix Finals where Katsuki Yuuri wins gold, gets engaged, and quits skating, not necessarily in that order.Well. Sort of.





	

Yuuri is crying.

They're happy tears, as far as Victor can tell; he sniffles and blinks erratically through the whole ceremony, wet trails glistening on his cheeks. When the official drapes the medal around his neck, his eyes go wide and shiny, disbelieving, his mouth forming a soft _o_ shape. He cups it in his hands like a butterfly and there it stays, all the way through the Japanese national anthem.

Victor doesn't have much experience with loving people. But he thinks it must be something like this: half of you gnawing, heavy with dread, _is this the end--?_ , the other half thinking, _I never want him to stop looking like that._

Yuuri is almost shy when he holds the medal out to Victor, glancing away, and Victor steps close, wipes the drying tear tracks from Yuuri's face before bending down to kiss the warming gold. "You were magnificent," he says, meaning it as much as he's meant anything in his life, and then, " _Record-holder._ Living legend Katsuki Yuuri."

Yuuri makes a noise like a mouse’s squeak. His nose is faintly pink. “--I don’t know about that,” he says finally, after a visible attempt to get his face under control. “I’ve got a long way to go before I match your heroics.”

His heart leaps into his throat.

“Does this mean you’re--” he starts, before he can think better of it.

And Yuuri--Yuuri looks up at him, face caught in genuine surprise, and then Victor sees his hands clench, ever so slightly, as though they want to form fists, and somehow he knows, without having to think about it, both that the answer is _no_ and that Yuuri isn’t sure he wants it to be.

“I think I’ll leave it here,” Yuuri says after a moment, gentle, placating.

This feeling, Victor decides, must also be part of love.

 

*

 

 _lovesick balding asshole_ (8:08 PM)

yUUUUUUUUUUUUrio  
i need your help :( :( :'( :''( :'((((

 _YURIO!!!!_ (8:08 PM)

wtf go away  
don't you have something disgusting to do with the katsudon

 _YURIO!!!!_ (8:10 PM)

WAIT  
IS HE STILL  
I'LL KILL HIM

 _lovesick balding asshole_ (8:10 PM)

:((((((((

 

*

 

They stay in that evening, both of them lying in bed with Victor's chin on Yuuri's stomach. It's nice, if you discount the part where Victor keeps giving Yuuri plaintive and also stunningly convincing looks through his eyelashes and Yuuri completely fails to notice all of Victor's passionate telepathic arguments for staying in competitive skating. Tying for gold to several decimal places. Forcing the ISU to make a rule change.

Technical committee heart attacks are very romantic.

Yuuri ignores the allure of forcing balding old men to clutch their chests in horror to field congratulatory phone calls--mostly from friends and family, but the Japanese early morning shows are beginning just as the night winds down in Barcelona, and Yuuri, apparently, is fast becoming a national hero. Victor watches him: his careful laugh, the canned, slightly shaky answers he gives to interview questions, all except the one that makes him turn red and stammer, "Ah--that is--I mean, I did win, so I guess logically that would imply--"

Victor cups his hands and hollers, "Love wins!" in the direction of the phone, and Yuuri goes, somehow, even redder.

" _Victor_ ," he hisses, and then in quite a different tone of voice, "yes, I think so. I--I proved something to myself, at least. And I'm very happy."

He doesn't sound _un_ happy, but he does sound wistful. "Have you spoken with Yakov yet?" he asks after hanging up the phone, and there's a soft, sad smile on his face.

Victor has not spoken with Yakov, at least not since the competition ended. He also does not understand his boyfriend.

 _Skate!_ he texts Yurio. _Have a skate-off! He likes your skating, I know he does._

 _fuck off_ , Yurio replies, and then, showing an appalling lack of commitment to his anger at Yuuri _or_ Victor, ceases to say anything at all.

In the morning, there is gala practice--well, in the morning Victor has decided that there will be gala practice, and wakes Yuuri at five in the morning to ensure it. He is a model coach. Yuuri sits up in bed, gives him a long, baleful stare, and then--unbelievably--goes. They run through the routine twice as the sun rises over Barcelona, light streaming in through the windows of the practice rink. The look on Yuuri’s face, at the moment he turns and his fingers brush against Victor’s cheek, is unspeakable.

 _Please, please don’t let this ever end_ , he thinks. He would stop time and be carted down to hell for it: there’s a story about that, isn’t there?

Afterwards he leans against the edge of the rink and says, “I’m coming back for my record, Yuuri. You’ll regret retiring so soon,” in a carefully-modulated teasing voice. Yuuri, in the midst of sliding the guards back on his skates, doesn’t look up.

“All right, Victor,” he says, sounding fond and exasperated in equal measure. This situation is getting desperate.

 

*

 

The problem: Katsuki Yuuri is an infuriatingly stubborn man.

The other problem: for someone with no poker face, he’s very good at making himself difficult to read. Victor thinks of him bowing his head, respectful and distant, as he said _let’s end this_ ; of his face pressed into Victor’s shoulder as he laughed into Victor’s jacket, not twelve hours later.

They don’t talk about it. Victor buys them both coffee and watches Yuuri sip his, slowly, as they walk through the city with their shoulders close enough to brush, trying to figure out how to say,  _you were most of the reason I wanted to come back. Stay._

“Yuuri.” He pauses. “Do you think we should get married in Russia or Japan?”

Yuuri, who had raised his cup halfway to his lips before Victor started speaking, takes a very big gulp of coffee, very fast. “I,” he stammers. “That. _Victor._ ”

He is kind of stuck on this course, isn’t he. “I did promise, after all!” He gives Yuuri a big smile. His heart is beating like a rabbit’s.

Victor recognizes the smile Yuuri’s wearing as his tolerant I-am-indulging-Victor smile, which doesn’t help. “Well,” he says, and laughs a little, disbelievingly. “I don’t know, Victor. What do you think?”

He stops.

He’s come up with so many beaming, outlandish answers to this one--destination wedding in Cancun! Disneyland Tokyo! _Yuu_ ri, let’s just elope!--and it isn’t like any of them aren’t true. Yuuri deserves everything Victor could possibly give him. But--Yuuri has stopped, as well, and is staring curiously back at him, and before he can think about the words Victor finds himself saying, “Hasetsu. I want to get married in Hasetsu.”

Yuuri’s eyes go wide. Victor sees him mouth the word _oh_. “You’re serious,” he says faintly.

This is not really the kind of thing one wants to hear from one’s fiance.

But Yuuri is smiling, almost unwillingly, as though some unseen force is pulling the corners of his mouth up. He looks more overthrown than he did breaking Victor's world record, or winning the gold medal. "You're serious," he repeats. "You want to get married. To--to me. _Victor._ "

 _What did you think the ring on your finger was for?_ Victor desperately wants to ask, but any thought of speech is swept aside by his baffling fiance, barreling into him with all the force of a freight train.

(He crouches down to set the cup of coffee on the ground first, because he's still Yuuri.)

"Oof," Victor says instead, his arms coming automatically around Yuuri's shoulders. Yuuri is so confusing, and he smells _so_ nice, and it feels very good to hold him. He squeezes Victor tighter around the middle and talks very fast, tongue tripping endearingly over the words.

"--didn't think," he is saying, "I thought you were just saying--don't look at me like that, you _say_ things sometimes," even though Victor has never, actually, made a promise to Yuuri he didn't mean, and also there's absolutely no way Yuuri can see his face from here, "--but yes. Yes. Of course yes, I want to marry you," and here he pushes himself back, holding onto Victor's shoulders. He seems suddenly hesitant.

"Victor?" he says. He pauses, visibly steeling himself to look Victor in the eye. "I--I want to get married in Hasetsu too."

Victor does not understand a single thing about his future husband, but he is very happy.

"Whatever you want," he murmurs, after a beat, when he realizes Yuuri is waiting for his response.

Yuuri laughs and leans back against Victor's chest, his head resting in the crook of Victor's neck. "In the offseason, maybe? I don't want to distract you, you'll be skating."

" _You_ could be skating, too," Victor says, because he can't do otherwise.

He feels Yuuri still. He can't see what expression is on Yuuri's face. "Don't," Yuuri says softly, after a long pause. "Not right now. Right now I just want--"

And he reaches for Victor's hand.

 

*

 

It's almost enough.

Yuuri leaning into him, their knees bumping as they eat breakfast at a streetside cafe. Yuuri with his hand stretched out, gazing down at his ring in newfound wonder. Yuuri curling close when Victor wraps an arm around his shoulder. Yuuri's smile, bright as sunlight glinting off the ocean.

"Come to St. Petersburg with me," he says, and Yuuri gets that same, soft, unspeakable look, the one Victor still can't believe is directed at him, and says just, "Yes."

Back at the rink, they settle in to watch the ladies' singles, hands still clasped like teenagers. Yuuri cheers for Mila, and then for Sara Crispino, and then for a tiny Japanese girl with a passable triple axel, who holds her ending pose a little too long on the ice. She can't be older than sixteen, Victor decides, squinting down at her.

"Do you know her?" he asks, and Yuuri, abashed, scratches his head with his free hand.

"Not really," he says. "I've seen her around at competitions, but--she went senior last year, and, well, that Nationals I was kind of . . . . "

Yuuri has impressed upon him the horror of _that Nationals_ enough times for it to stick in Victor's mind, although privately he wonders if certain aspects of it aren't . . . exaggerated, by hindsight. "Right, that makes sense."

Yuuri smiles up at him. "I know, I know, I need to get better at acknowledging the rest of the field, right? I'll try." Then, as though he's just remembered, the smile drops from his face. He goes hushed. "Although--I suppose it doesn't matter as much now, does it?"

His hand in Victor's tenses, as though he expects Victor to push the issue again. When Victor doesn't say anything, just squeezes his hand back, he relaxes. "She's pretty good, isn't she?" he says. "That triple axel . . . . "

"Almost as good as yours," Victor allows, and Yuuri laughs, as they wait for her score to come up.

He hasn't given up. He's just . . . retreating to regroup. Calculating another angle of attack.

Yuuri really _hadn't_ believed him: he's been acting like someone newly engaged all morning, giddy and laughing, leaning into Victor. He always says he wants _Victor to stay Victor_ , not realizing that sometimes who Victor is is too much for him: too big, too flashy, too extravagant. He's still learning how to say things so that Yuuri will know he means them. He's still learning how to be the Victor whose words Yuuri can trust in.

He thinks of the dry-mouthed declaration he made on the Barcelona streets, a wedding on the beach in Hasetsu, the seagulls crying in the distance. Simple, sentimental, the furthest thing from extravagant.

The night after next is the gala. Victor waits for his cue, creeping through the darkened part of the rink as Yuuri soars through the air. No one would see him if they weren't specifically looking for him. Then the lights go up, illuminating his part of the ice in soft pink, as he glides to Yuuri's side.

A hush comes over the audience.

Somehow, Yuuri looks just as stunned to see him as they do, as though he hadn't known Victor was going to be there, as though they hadn't practiced this hundreds of times. He wants to catch Yuuri by the chin and kiss his cheeks until his face crumples and tears spill over, until Yuuri is laughing and crying at the same time. He settles for lifting him up into the air, hoisting him towards the audience as they spin. _Look at him. Look at this man I get to call mine._

The roar, when they finish, must be deafening. He barely hears it. "Yuuri," he says, as they step off the ice, and he is going to have to refrain from making jokes about Yuuri's tongue-tied-ness for at least a week, because he can't even talk. "Yuuri, I love--I love--"

Yuuri glances back at him, his eyes glinting in the low light. "I love you too," he says, small and wondering, as awed as Victor feels.

And he knows: this is the moment. He has to do it now.

"I want--Yuuri, I want to keep skating with you," he starts, reaching blindly for the hand of Yuuri's he isn't holding. "I don't ever want this to end. I want to skate with you, forever, just like this."

" _Victor_ ," Yuuri says, like a plea. His eyes have gone wide.

He thinks: quiet, not grandiose, so Yuuri will know he means every word. "Don't--don't retire. Don't you want to skate on the same ice again?"

Yuuri stills, his lips slightly parted. Victor can read the _yes yes yes_ in every joint of his body, in the stricken lines of his face, and for one long moment he thinks that this is going to work. That it must work.

Instead Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut, hard. His grip on Victor's hands is like a vise. "I--can't," he bites out, as though the words themselves take an effort to say. "I can't."

 

*

 

They don't talk about it. Again.

How does he keep getting this so wrong? How is it so hard to convince Yuuri to do something he clearly wants to do?

 

*

 

When he wakes the next morning, the other side of the bed is cold. Icy panic seizes Victor as he overturns the covers, looking for a note, a--something, he doesn't know what. He can't have gotten things that wrong, can he?

He forces himself to calm down. There are Yuuri's things, still hanging in the closet; Yuuri's pills on the bedside table. He knows Yuuri. Doesn't understand him, a lot of the time--but for this--

If he thinks about it, he knows where Yuuri is at seven fifteen in the morning, the day before they're set to leave Barcelona for good. He knows enough for that.

The door to the practice rink is slightly ajar. He hears the scratch of metal against ice, and sees the lone figure dancing to a soundtrack only he can hear. Love, and longing, he thinks, looking at the curve of Yuuri's back. This is the routine of someone who would have to be torn, forcibly, inch by inch, from the ice.

For an embarrassingly long time he thinks Yuuri must be skating _Stay Close to Me_ , though he, of all people, should be able to distinguish between two routines he choreographed. It's his own self-centeredness, perhaps. Katsuki Yuuri, pushed to make manifest the want he's kept buried within him all week, wouldn't skate an ode to loneliness, or one half of a duet. No, Yuuri is skating his own story. He always has.

 _You could break your own world record if you skated like this_ , he thinks.

He creeps closer--Yuuri is absorbed in what he's doing enough not to see him until he strikes his final pose, arm reaching out not quite to where Victor is now. "Vic--" he hears Yuuri say, and then, "oh, _no._ "

"You can't skate like that," Victor says, "and tell me you don't want--"

" _Stop it_."

It rings out, loud, in the empty rink. There's high color on Yuuri's face, agitation evident in the way he holds his body as he comes to a stop against the boards. "Don't start," he says sharply, when Victor opens his mouth again. "I mean it, just--just _don't._ Has it even occurred to you that maybe I don't want to skate with some other coach?"

He looks _hurt_ , his eyes glassy as though holding back tears, his chin trembling slightly.

A lot of things are slowly becoming clear to Victor.

Yuuri smiles, then, slight and brittle, as though reading the answer to his own question in Victor's face. "No. I guess not. You never--you never _think_ about these things," that last part said with a burst of unexpected force. "You always say these things, and you never think, and I don't know how I'm supposed to--to--"

It's almost funny. He had been thinking of returning to the ice, always, as something he would do for Yuuri: fulfilling a wish, setting a challenge. Skating their story for the whole world to see, so that everyone would know how happy he was.

He thought he had been giving Yuuri what he wanted. Well, perhaps he had. But-- "Go on," he says softly. "Don't hold back on me, now."

Yuuri's lips are pinched shut, as if to dam the flow of words that threatens to pour out. He closes his eyes. Victor can see the exact moment he gives them up. "Yes, all right? I want to skate! I want to win, and win with you. Are you happy now? Are you done making this harder than it needs to be?"

The tears are coming now, Yuuri choking back little hitching breaths. He scrubs one hand violently across his face.

The past few months have not made Victor any better at dealing with crying people--crying boyfriends most of all. He thinks of Yuuri, wistful, glancing and glancing into the distance, setting the fact of Victor's return to skating between them like a shield. He isn't wrong--Victor probably should have thought of this.

_What can I give Yuuri now?_

"You're right," he says finally. "I hadn't thought--I hadn't _planned_ on quitting as your coach."

And he waits.

Yuuri looks--knowing, at first, amused and exasperated at once, as though he finds this confirmation of his own worldview comforting. Victor levels his gaze and doesn't look away. He's not good at patience, but he can wait for this: for the moment Yuuri realizes he isn't coming around to Yuuri's worldview at all, but insisting on a different one entirely.

Yuuri tugs at his hair with a hand, looking like he expected this, too. "You can't _give up your career_ for me," he hisses. "I--I won't allow it."

There are many things that could be said about that, Victor thinks, but he merely raises an eyebrow. "I wasn't planning on that, either."

Silence, again. Some part of Victor is grimly triumphant at having managed to catch Yuuri by surprise this time.

"You can't do that, either!" Yuuri says. "That's--that's--that's ridiculous."

"Why?" he asks. "Don't you think I can do it?"

He knows he's got Yuuri the moment it leaves his mouth: Yuuri, caught between conceding the argument and insisting that Victor Nikiforov, living legend and inspiration to all of figure skating, can't do _anything_ , simply sputters instead.

Victor leans forward, elbows against the boards. "You see," he says lightly, "there's really no need for you to be so noble about this, _Yuu_ -ri."

Yuuri looks away. The sheer _want_ on his face makes Victor's heart hurt. "If anyone could do it, it would be you," he says. "But I don't think anyone could."

"You won't even let me try?"

He is beautiful, Victor thinks, even like this: his mouth half-open, eyes caught in a storm. That he's hesitating even this much is--not a surprise, precisely, but not expected either; he hadn't known what to expect.

So Yuuri believes in him, as much as he believes in Yuuri. Victor can't think of anything that would make him happier, except--

"Well?"

"--It's not fair," Yuuri says finally, shutting his mouth hard around it. He glances towards the ice. "I can't ask that of you, Victor."

It's difficult to get any closer to Yuuri with the boards between them, but Victor manages. "Then it's a good thing I'm offering, isn't it?"

 

*

 

 _Victor (❤ )_ (10:11 AM):

yuuuuuuuri when will you get here :((((((  
i miss youuuuuuu :((((  
its been almost a whole WEEK

 _❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ! ! FUTURE HUSBAND ! !❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤_ (10:12 AM):

three days, victor.  
almost done packing. i miss you too.

 _❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ! ! FUTURE HUSBAND ! !❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤_ (10:14 AM):

. . . victor i should say  
are you sure about  
you know

 _❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ! ! FUTURE HUSBAND ! !❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤_ (10:17 AM):

I MEAN I KNOW IT'S A LOT TO ASK AND  
i'd understand if you had second thoughts, of course. or just  
you know when i said i didn't want to skate with another coach i wasn't trying to  
. . . pressure you, or imply anything, i guess  
you should do what's best for you.

 _Victor (❤ )_ (10:18AM):

yes, i got that after the part where you tried to retire from skating and started crying!

 _❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ! ! FUTURE HUSBAND ! !❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤_ (10:18 AM):

…………………………….okay fine  
i just meant  
i wanted you to know. to be sure you knew.

 _Victor (❤ )_ (10:18 AM):

i do know. although.  
if you're still worried about that, yuuri, there's something you can do to make it up to me.

 _❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ! ! FUTURE HUSBAND ! !❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤_ (10:19 AM):

what's that?

 _Victor (❤ )_ (10:18 AM):

Be worth it. If you're worried about taking my time, use it to become the best skater you can be.  
Better than Yuri Plisetsky. Better than Victor Nikiforov.  
That's all I want from you, in return for continuing as your coach.

 _Victor (❤❤❤❤❤ )_ (10:21 AM):

Yuuri?

 _❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ! ! FUTURE HUSBAND ! !❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤_ (10:21 AM):

❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤  
❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤

 _❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤_ **_! !_ ** _FUTURE HUSBAND_ **_! !_ ** _❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤_ (10:22 AM):

I love you. Yes.

**Author's Note:**

> Someday I will actually code myself an emoji skin. Today is not that day.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr [here.](http://inkstrangle.tumblr.com)


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